Twitter on CNews

Soyini Grey was a delight to work with on this clip for CNews' technology segment. Smart, funny and accommodating, she allowed me to ramble on for what seemed like way too long about Twitter, traditional media and the elections in Iran.

Some thoughts that didn't make it into the final edit include...Twitter succeeded in Iran because it was diffuse and invisible. Traditional media was easy to find, target and neutralise. Licensed, official reporters are known to the authorities, dozens of people with cellphones and laptops are not.

The authorities in Iran tried to stop information from getting out, blocking access to the preferred social media network in Iran, Friendfeed, but young people simply switched to Twitter and went on sharing links and news updates. Multiple sources of information and multiple points of access for publishing make traditional methods of information supression more difficult, if not impossible to implement.

In embracing new media, traditional media sources need to cultivate the savvy to separate misinformation from fact, opinion from reporting. Life magazine, busy reinventing itself as a source for impactful photography on the web did exactly that by making contact with a photographer who posted some of the best imagery coming out of the protests and gathering that person's work into a striking gallery.

The photographer's identity remains unknown and has since been reported missing by their family. See those images on Life's gallery here...